How New Orleans' Best Po-Boy is Made | Made to Order | Bon Appétit

I'm Marvin Mthur. I'm here at Guys Por Boys New Orleans, Louisiana. I'm going to make the perfect shrimp pole boy. Listen up. I've been doing this for 34 years. I've made over a million pobo in this one spot on this one corner at this one counter. And I make every sandwich. A poboy, it's not a sub. It's not a hogi, is a sandwich. Everybody in the city is making shrimp pobo boys. If I want them to come to me, I got to make sure this sandwich is going to be perfect. There's a lot of different fillings out there for pobo. I do shrimp. This is a white shrimp, even though it looks gray. This is a brown pink. This is more of a bolder flavor. This is my favorite. Our shrimp come in frozen like everybody else's shrimp, but we know what shrimp to buy. The Gulf shrimp. These shrimp swim their entire life. If something is sedimentary in the pond, they don't have the flavor these shrimp have. Shrimp are sold by size. This is a 4050. So 40 or 50 of these makes a pound. It's perfect size for your mouse. Now all I'm going to do is rinse off. I'm checking for shells, tails, pieces of head, anything that's not shrimp. This is the spot to find it right now. We're good to go. Eggs are so important to the batter. These eggs are for our egg wash. I'm not going to add anything to them. The eggs are to keep the breading on the shrimp. I want them to be homogeneous at this point. When I put them over the shrimp, I'm going to make it look like a pudding. That's what I'm looking for. All right. Now, I'm going to mix the flour. Yellow corn flour. Preferably this Indian girl. If I don't have this Indian girl, I am obsessed. It's the finest. It's so silky smooth. This is our blend. Salt pepper and a little secret. Put any other little spice you want to taste in there. People think, "Oh, it's southern cooking. You want to kill it with spice. " No, you don't really spice. Spice is killing me. All right. So, now that that's all mixed, remember I was telling you we're going to make a pudding out of it. Look at this. See how the egg is all filled in. Looks like a lot of egg. It is And it looks like it's going to make the breading stick a little too much, but Mar's going to take care of that. You'll see this is by hand. You got to do this by hand. It looks like I'm just mixing them up, but I'm not. I'm rolling them. And the reason being why I'm working it so much is I call it a yellow belly. You see the curve of the shrimp? The belly when they pack it full of flour and they don't shake it enough, it fries into a ball and then all the outside's going to be cooked. And when you open it up, the belly is gonna still be yellow raw. That's not acceptable. As I'm putting them in here, it looks like I'm just gently tossing them, but no, I'm kind of squeezing them. It's got a little grip to it. And then I fluff them out. You don't want to overfill a basket. Another bad move. Fill this thing up to here. The ones in the middle are never going to get cooked. You see how I packed them with batter and the batter came off? Now, I'mma drop these in. Fry set at 350. And here we go. I'mma drop them. I'mma let them fry for 30, 40 seconds. I don't really have anything time. I'm just listening. See all the moisture is cooking out right now. I'm waiting for them to firm up just enough to where when I shake them in the fryer, I'm not washing the batter off of them. They all fry individually and we don't get those clumps. That's not good cuz the middle's not going to be cooked. I'm going to give it a second shaking where everyone's separated. All right, got our shrimp fry. Let's talk about the bread. If you can make it better yourself, make it yourself. I can't make this bread better. This is Len Hammer. They delivered to me. These people are a little startup company. Look, since 1896. No, they've been doing this a long time. They got it scientifically figured out. It's perfect. This truly is a specific piece of bread. This piece of bread is only going to last one day. This is a 4 day old piece of bread. Dust done. Obviously, this is not going

to make a pull boy. This is 3 hours old. Look how soft and sweet. Man, I get all excited. These ovens are infused with humidity. The humidity that makes it have this crunch on the outside while obtaining the soft middle. I cut every piece of bread to order. Look at that. After a million times, that's pretty freaking exact, huh? Now, I cut them to order for one reason, and that's because if you cut this piece of bread in the morning time, and you come back in about four hours or five hours, it's going to start curling like this. Now, your tomatoes going to fall over the side. I can't have that. Unacceptable. Tomatoes. We're going to start with the tomatoes. If you don't have a tomato plucker, pluck it with a P. You just slide it in. Roll your tomato. Pulls out the core. If you have to use a pairing knife, I cut my pairing knife down with my thumb to just the depth of I want to get into the tomato. Slide it in. Turn my tomato. Pull it out. I can't stand when somebody goes all the way into the tomato, cuts a big old hole in it, then every tomato slice has a hole in it. Drives me nuts. This is the slicer that I've had for 30 years. We go round for round. It's getting a little old. stubborn. Kind of like me. I'm going to open it up about a/4 of an inch. I'm going to knock these out real quick for you. No seasoning, no pickling, no nothing. This is it. The tomato is going to taste like a tomato. Now, the lettuce and boom. You give it the pop and the core comes right out. Trim off the little extra stuff. You're in the grocery store and you're looking at lettuce, you want the heaviest one. The place I buy my lettuce, I pick every case up that's on the top because the heavy is where you at. I go with the shredded lettuce because when you put it in your mouth, it touches more taste buds so you get more flavor. So, I'm going to shred this up real. That's like fresh powder to a skier right there. Kind of crazy when lettuce gets you excited like that, but you know what? I love it when it's right. Let's put this all into action and let's get us a pull boy made. And I tell you what, I can't wait to bite in it myself. Showtime, baby. Let's do this. The mayo's first. Blue plate mayo. That's what we grew up on. Then I'm going to go with the lettuce. Then we're going to put our tomatoes. Three tomatoes every time. This way you're going to get a bite of tomato, a bite of lettuce in every bite. Each tomato gets a pickle. 1/8 inch slice. This is where you want to go. So that's your traditional dress. Then we're going to guys it up a little bit. I'm put a little hot sauce. If you're real special, I'll write your name for you. And now our shrimp. You might think I'm putting this much shrimp on here just for the camera. No. So now the fold. This could be a catastrophe. You got to lift and separate a little bit. You give room for these shrimp to fall in there. So when you roll it over, there you have it. Look at that. Ain't that beautiful? I'm not very delicate with this sandwiches. If I just folded it over like this and cut it and wrapped it. when you get it to the table and you open it up, it's gonna fall out all over the place. So, actually what I do is I press it down. Then I make my cut. Then the wrap. I'm not just like folding it over. I'm squeezing this right here. This is tight. One piece of tape. There we go. This one's for me. That's incredible. I have to tell you, proud of myself. Every time I do it, every one tastes like the very first time I did this. I love it. You wondering who this one's for? This is yours. Come to guys full 5259 Magazine Street. Pick up your salmon. It's ready.